The Atlantic City Police Department has failed to take advantage
of crime-fighting technology that is being used routinely
elsewhere, and as a result is unable to electronically map crimes,
analyze crime data and detect trends with its current computer
systems.

When Bernadette Kucharczuk arrived last summer to take over the
city’s information and technology duties, there were even
communication problems among the different systems.

“I’ve seen very lean organizations,” the experienced technology
director said. “But this is the leanest.”

The city is hoping to use a Casino Reinvestment Development
Authority grant to improve its technology, including putting
laptops in every patrol car and upgrading its computer-aided
dispatch system, or CAD, which is how dispatchers log calls.

The dispatch system is a prime example of how technology
unavailable to the Atlantic City department could help fight crime.
If a technology overhaul is approved, the CAD could be fed into a
system that would bring up a call location on a map. GPS would let
the dispatcher know where the nearest patrol car is to the source
of the call. Kucharczuk said dispatchers also would not have to
re-enter the same information again and again.

“Intelligence-based policing is something we’ve wanted to do for a
long time,” said Deputy Chief Ernest Jubilee, who runs the
department’s day-to-day operations.

The city was not always so behind the times, retired Chief John
Mooney said.

In the 1970s, the department was one of the first to have data
terminals in its police cars. Now, it is one of the few departments
in New Jersey in which no car has a computer. Lack of funding and
the fact that technological upgrades were not a political priority
contributed to deteriorating technical capacity, Mooney said.

“My understanding is that, in those days, the funding for that was
provided by grants,” he said. “Unfortunately, the grant money dried
up. There wasn’t a lot of political will to continue the project,
and the equipment fell into disrepair. Unfortunately, that’s been a
steady diet of what’s continued to occur: a lack of political will
to provide equipment and technology and manpower to keep the Police
Department running well.”

Now, department staffing is at its lowest since casino gambling
came to the city in 1978, when there were 272 officers. Since then,
the ranks had not fallen below 315 until last year, when 60
officers were laid off. Concessions returned 17 to duty in
December, bringing the number to 300, which includes those out on
disability or for other reasons.

“In this day and age of limited resources, you have to use
technology,” said Daren Dooley, chief of detectives for the
Atlantic County Prosecutor’s Office. “Intelligence-based policing
and predictive policing are what we need to be doing.”

Antiquated systems

As other police departments in the county put computers in their
cars and updated their office equipment, Atlantic City’s equipment
has stayed relatively unchanged.

“What’s antiquated is the software we’re running,” Jubilee said.
“There have been so many improvements to records management
systems.”

Information such as the number of calls for service, types of crime
and where and when crimes happen is even more important with
tightened manpower, Mooney said.

In times when staffing is higher, “it’s very easy to say a
neighborhood needs more police protection and add it,” he said.
“Unfortunately, police commanders are left with decisions to remove
(resources) from certain areas. It’s a lot easier to say, ‘The data
shows why we’re making this decision,’ rather than to subject the
decision-making process to political diatribe. Without it, you’re
basically left to the anecdotal knowledge and experience of
commanders.”

In Lower Township, Cape May County, a five-year capital plan has
been used to upgrade technology to include computers in every car
and GPS tracking, Chief Ed Donohue said. The mobile terminals even
have a thumb pad to allow officers to check a suspect’s record
before they head back to the station. Rather than having to run
checks through dispatch, as Atlantic City does, the officers can
make checks on their own.

“It’s a lot faster,” Donohue said. “It’s better for officer safety
and for the public safety.”

But in Atlantic City, the computer systems go back to the 1990s,
Jubilee said.

“They are challenged, yes,” Kucharczuk said of the department. “All
of the city is challenged.”

Jubilee has said that Mooney did not apply for grant money that was
available. And Atlantic County Prosecutor Ted Housel said he had
been led to believe grant money was available, but he was unsure
why applications were not made.

Mooney, however, said that things looked promising in 2006. Bob
Levy was mayor, and he and the then-chief met with the CRDA and the
state Attorney General’s Office. Then, State Police were brought in
to assess the department’s current system.

“Quite frankly, the project bogged down,” Mooney said. “It was
disappointing to see that happen.”

The state, he said, wanted to take too much control.

“My take on it is that, as we tried to move forward, there was a
certain level of resistance from the state in terms of moving
forward with the funding,” Mooney said. “Suffice it to say, I was
frustrated by the delays.”

The project died in the waning days of former Gov. Jon S. Corzine’s
administration, he said.

Now, the city has vowed to use the CRDA’s offer to its fullest and
work with the agency, which wants to oversee how its funds are
spent.

The plan includes moving sworn officers out of the information and
technology department and putting civilians in, city Business
Administrator Michael Scott said. That would free up those officers
to go back to other police duties, where they are needed.

It also ensures those working in IT have that specific training,
Kucharczuk said.

“The things that make people good police officers are not
necessarily the same qualities that make a good IT person,” she
said. “I would never be a really good cop.”

Some police computers are 10 to 12 years old, Kucharczuk said.
Under the new plan, there would be a five-year turnover.
High-performance users would receive a new computer after two or
three years, while others would get the older machine passed
down.

“You make two people happy with one computer buy,” she said.

When soliciting bids for the project, many considerations will be
made, Kucharczuk said, including that the cheapest may not be the
best. The city will be looking for system compatibility and ease of
use. Jubilee and some of his department heads also are being
consulted.

“They know exactly what they need,” Kucharczuk said. “And I know
what they could be doing.”

Multiple benefits

Lower Township’s chief said the technology can go beyond police
work. The township is inputting information for Lower’s fire
companies, going around to different businesses to find out where
hazardous materials are and taking pictures of the inside. In the
future, responders will be able to access information ahead of time
about what they’re facing.

“It’s a lot of legwork at first,” Donohue said. “But years from
now, the fire department will be able to pull up what kind of
hazardous materials are there and will be able to actually look at
photographs of the inside of the building.”

Despite the payoff of such technology, he said he knows the costs
and believes that county offices will soon join in to help
municipalities get the equipment — and have the same things across
the board.

Housel said the Atlantic County Prosecutor’s Office is looking into
a system that would be offered to all municipalities and would
likely use federal grant money. Because it’s in the planning
stages, his office did not want to comment on it.

But he did say that municipalities have been offered free document
scanners — bought with grants — that will enable more easy sharing
of files. Now, paper files are often sent by courier or through the
mail, creating a time lapse.

Also, to save valuable investigative time, the office had college
students go around Atlantic City and Pleasantville — Atlantic
County’s other high-in-crime but low-in-technology town — to see
which businesses have surveillance cameras and what kind. The
information will be put into Google Earth so that, when an incident
occurs, the investigator can bring it up and see where the cameras
were that may have captured a crime.

“The old-fashioned way of knocking on every door can take time,”
Housel said. “Time can cause erasure (of tapes).”

Housel said he hopes that the county and Atlantic City can work
toward better technology to aid law enforcement.

“In the age of intelligence-driven policing, technology is very
important,” he said. “It gives information that allows us to
visualize things like deployment. We can tell you where, what time
of day and what day of the week crime is more likely to
occur.”

“It’s definitely a force multiplier,” Mooney said, adding that he
never really understood the hesitance in spending for technology.
“In the end, it’s cheaper than manpower. You don’t have to pay
health insurance or pension costs. You don’t have to give a
computer or a camera sick time.”